Thin arrival of tourists hurts owners of beach horses

OUR CORRESPONDENT
COX'S BAZAR, Sept 10: Tourists in Cox's Bazar love to ride horses on the beach. And this generates a substantial income for the horse owners. But in past several months, they earned too scanty to provide sufficient fodder to the horses due to lack of tourists and rising prices of feed.
Rozina Akhter, a horse owner, said, "A bag of horse feed used to cost me Tk 1,100 six months ago, which is now Tk 1,900. As this is not a busy tourist season, there is only a few tourists on the beach. So, our income has fallen drastically."
"I have 11 horses. But, I'm now thinking of leaving this business and do something else," she added.
According to the horse owners, there are some 120 horses in beach town of Cox's Bazar for tourism purposes. And at least 200 people are involved with this trade.
However, the officials of Cox's Bazar Horse Traders Association said that the association has a total of 27 members, and they have 70 horses.
Of them, 30 have weakened due to starvation, they added.
Md Mamun, another horse owner, said, "Once I had 17 horses. Eight of them died as I could not feed them during the Covid-19 pandemic. Later, I had to sell six others."
"Now I have three horses. And it is difficult to feed them since tourists are not coming per our expectation. The money I earn by my horses does not even cover the cost of their feed," he added.
"At least Tk 500 is needed to arrange fodder for a horse daily. Due to lack of tourists, our income is now so low that we cannot arrange food for our family members. So, how will we arrange fodder for horses?" said another horse owner Nurul Alam.
President of Cox's Bazar Horse Owners Association, Farida Begum, said, "The horse business is going through a tough time right now. On one hand, the price of horse feed is increasing and on the other, only a few tourists are visiting the beach."
"What we want now from the government is to help us get horse feed at subsidised prices," she added.
HM Nazrul Islam, Member Secretary of Cox's Bazar Citizens Movement, said that horses are an interesting medium of entertainment in Cox's Bazar tourism industry.
Local and foreign tourists coming to the beach can enjoy the joy of horse riding here, he added saying that, "The horses of Cox's Bazar should be taken care of properly and the weak horses should be treated."
tahjibulanam18@gmail.com